Thinking For Ourselves.

Whoa for the conservatives that is anarchy. We can’t have the voters thinking for themselves, they might realize what our real goals are and we will not be able to control those, those… “free thinkers”!

Florida’s Attack on Education Should Ring Alarm Bells at Harvard
By Clyve Lawrence, Crimson Opinion Writer
February 13, 2023


Intellectual diversity and academic freedom have long been crucial tenets of education. But these ideals are under attack in Florida — a development that should worry us all.

On the first day of Black History Month, the College Board announced it was altering the curriculum for its Advanced Placement course in African American Studies after Florida’s Department of Education rejected the course days earlier, arguing it violated Florida law and “lack[ed] educational value.” Seemingly succumbing to the department’s demands to come “into compliance,” the College Board stripped away and minimized many scholars and subjects central to Blackness in the United States, from Black feminism to Black Lives Matter.

This dispute is the latest ideological swing against education in Florida. As the state plans to overhaul its higher education system by eliminating diversity and equity programs, Florida teachers are hiding their classroom books to avoid felony charges for controversial material.

We can’t have these diversity trainings the people might get wrong ideas and sit around singing Kumbaya.

At the helm of this effort is the culture warrior Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who appears to be throwing the Republican base red meat before a rumored 2024 presidential bid. Indeed, the subjects cut from the AP African American Studies curriculum read like a laundry list of Republican complaints about “wokeness” in education. Riding a dominant re-election win, DeSantis declared in his victory speech, “Florida is where woke goes to die.”

We can’t have those little minds thinking impure thoughts, like being LGBTQ is not a choice. That Blacks are not inferior to Whites. That slavery was bad. That we are not a Christian nation. It might wake them up and we don’t want them “Woke!”

I am the first to admit that elitism exerts itself in tangible ways here at Harvard and, undoubtedly, at many prestigious institutions of higher learning. But the recent push from DeSantis — a graduate of Harvard Law School himself — distorts and places undue blame on academic institutions for infecting young people with “woke” ideologies.

And now, anti-intellectualism is the letter of the law in the state of Florida. This should set off alarm bells for anyone who cares about academic freedom.

That is exactly what the Republicans want to keep us dumb and believing all the right-wing bigorty.